245. How to Use Consumer Testing to Build High-Performing Packaging with Michael Keplinger of SmashBrand

0:01Welcome to Startup to Scale, a podcast by FoodBevy. I'm your host, Jordan Buckner. Join me as I talk to aspiring entrepreneurs, seasoned industry experts, and everyone in between as we unlock the keys to growing from startup to scale.

0:18Today I'm diving into both the science and psychology behind packaging that sells. Most founders think of packaging as a design exercise, But my guest today, Michael Keplinger, who's the managing partner at Smash Brand, really sees it as something much deeper. His team helps brands bring the consumer voice directly into decision making and testing so that you can actually make sure you have products that win, especially in those crucial kind of three to 13 seconds when the shopper is deciding what to buy. Oh, Michael, thanks so much for being on and welcome to the podcast today.

0:50Michael Keplinger:Thanks, Jordan. Happy to be here. I'm looking forward to jumping into it. Perfect. So you kind of talk about that three to 13 second decision window. Can you just explain what that means and why the short window is critical for brands to really stand out to customers? Yeah, so at a high level, that is more or less the decision window. It's such a small amount of time, three to 13 seconds. It's like in a flash of an eye. But when you're standing at a retail shelf, which is certainly this applies towards other channels that you would sell into. But at that retail shelf, it's a really compressed decision making process.

1:26Michael Keplinger:And I think that is really where we spend all of our work. It's crazy to think in that such a short window that it can make or break a brand. That's really cool. So tell me a little bit about the work that you're doing at SmashBrand and the company as a whole, just to kind of help set the context in terms of why you're so focused on this. Sure. We are a brand development agency for CPGs. I'd say, by and large, the vast majority of what we work on is fast-moving consumer goods. And I think that's relevant, too, because, again, that 3 to 13 seconds probably doesn't apply if I'm buying a car, right, or sometimes even a blender, spend a little more time.

2:03Michael Keplinger:But at Smashbrand, when we really focus on how to succeed, we're very performance driven. When something new, you're going to make a change or your new brand, put that on the shelf. And that packaging is doing that primary communication. And there aren't many categories that have no competitors. And so there really is that split choice of why consumers choose one product over the other. And that's our entire work. And so my portion of, so if you think about a client comes to Smashbrand and the end result, and they might even say, I need packaging for my product. But what they really want is they want packaging that performs.

2:40Michael Keplinger:And so our whole process kind of works backwards from there, injecting the part that I do is really injecting very specific consumer insights to kind of iterate and feed towards that kind of outcome at the end. You know, it's interesting because packaging has to do so much work, communicate so many different things. And, you know, I found this and learned this myself with my brand T-Squares that I ran as an injury bar company. I ran for about six years. And we were always at the beginning trying to like smash everything into a small little, you know, five by six inch packaging square. And it was really challenging both because as a founder, I want to say like to put everything on there, but then understand what are the actual reasons that consumers are buying that they need to be attracted to.

3:25So it's less about me as the founder, more about like what consumers were looking for. But I'd love to hear from your perspective, you know, what is it about the packaging that makes the product sell?

3:35Michael Keplinger:Yeah, it's the reason we have so many testing is because it really does depend. But some broad strokes that maybe I can paint for everyone that and you touched on it, right? This is the hardest thing to get a sense of is like what actually belongs on the front of pack or on the packaging in general. And because you really do have a limited space. And I like to think of it as you've got this kind of, it's not one thing, but what it is, is this like magic recipe that works. And so the nuance in trying to figure out that recipe that works for your brand has a few pieces, like the amount of information you're trying to put forward can become counterproductive.

4:08Michael Keplinger:I can get cluttered in the visuals there. I'm trying to understand what's communicated visually versus verbally. And then a couple other points. I think it all comes down to also is like, what is the need the consumer has or want? And how does the product solve it? And you kind of think about if I'm in a retail setting, I have lots of choices and the human brain needs to kind of narrow down into process of elimination. So most important is you actually need to be properly categorized. Like I need to understand what this product is, what it does. And then a lot of times there's so much subcategorization.

4:40Michael Keplinger:It's just kind of getting down eliminated. And so now I've got a workable set of products to choose from for the consumer. And then and only then conveying in the right order the value problem, like the differentiators and what you're doing. And again, what I said is like, is that visual? Is it verbal? And a sizing of words. And so a lot of the work that we do is understanding what belongs on front of PAC. And then also the hierarchy, which visually translates into emphasis and placement on PAC and getting all the sequencing right to communicate because it doesn't really happen in like a lockstep.

5:15Michael Keplinger:It's like almost instantaneous. It's like judgment, right? Where it's like Tinder, right? Swipe left, swipe right. That product's good. That one's bad. And you've got to hit all those things right to be part of that consideration set. Yeah, I think that's so interesting. You know, one lesson that I learned with our first product was at Whole Foods, we're doing a demo table, had a customer come up and they said, hey, I actually saw your product on the store shelf. I thought it was interesting, but I didn't buy it. And I was like, oh, why? And they're like, I couldn't quite understand what it was, if it was for me.

5:46Those are the concepts. Essentially, they were bite-sized energy bars, and then we infused them with tea for natural energy from the caffeine. But we described them as a tea-infused energy snack, and I think it was a play to try to stand out. But I realized I had never gone into the store looking for a tea-infused energy snack. Neither has anyone else, I would bet. And so people just didn't understand what the product was, let alone if it was for them. And so that was a huge lesson that I learned where people really are making decisions that quickly and they need to understand like, OK, this is an energy bar with caffeine.

6:22Great. I want it or I don't. But at least I get it. And I know what that is. And so that's a lesson I had to learn the hard way.

6:29Michael Keplinger:Yeah. And those are I mean, that is one example of kind of the broader thing. And it's different in every category is like, but really it comes down to what is the consumer's frame of reference? If you're just another product that's like slightly higher premium, it's pretty easy and you can jump straight to like, what is it makes you more premium? But like in your case, Jordan, and a lot of really good product innovation happens by kind of merging or kind of switching and kind of subcategory innovation. and those are the harder ones where you actually have to really get the frame of reference right this actually reminds me of a client we had many many years ago and this one was pretty fun because the product was very much an innovation and i'm gonna explain what it is you tell me what comes to mind okay so this is how you use it actually this is the kind of the use case so maybe i'm going skiing and you know gets chilly in the end so i have this lotion i'm gonna rub it on my skin and it will warm me up.

7:24Michael Keplinger:Or maybe I live in New York City, female, I got a nice dress on and I don't want to wear the big bulky clothes on a cool, cold evening. So I put this lotion on my skin. So what's the first, so this is pretty novel, right? You've never heard of anything like this. What comes to mind to you when you think of that? You know, it kind of sounds like icy hot, but the hot part. And that's the problem. This is a perfect example. You don't have a frame of reference. And so the client came to us, they're like, oh yeah, this product, everybody likes it after we explain it. But they always just like think of Bengay or Icy Hot.

7:56Michael Keplinger:And so that was like this was a really tricky one, but I think it kind of it's an exaggerated point. But it's a real example of how the consumer needs to kind of shortcuts. And so what's the decision making shortcut? In their case, we actually had to change the whole frame of reference and we called it cold screen. So your frame of reference is now sunscreen, cold screen. And then they have like UPF instead of SPF, which was like a CPF, cold protection factor. So you can see, and then you never, we even tested this, like you never thought of Bengay again. So, but you think about that in every other categories, what are the logical steps that you can use to make your differentiator quicker to understand and relate it to that?

8:34Michael Keplinger:But then, of course, sometimes you go down the wrong path and I could probably give you a ton of examples, but that was such a, that's like such a critical part, especially on category and subcategory innovation of trying to get them to understand it. I love that. I mean, that's such a key learning for that frame of reference, because whether you want to or not, those consumers will have a frame of reference. So either you can help steer that in one direction or the other, or you are unconsciously steering it one direction or the other. And I know what makes it really hard is every category and subcategory is a little different.

9:06And so like, how do you even think about consumer decision making psychology across categories, right? Because a protein bar buyer is different from someone who's in premium beverage. How do you start to test those things out?

9:18Michael Keplinger:Yeah. So like in our process, like one of the first tests we do, we call it a category baseline test. And the purpose of this is to actually understand what decision making is at play. Like what are what are kind of different levers? And I could spend an hour talking about different things. But so in some categories, like take healthy snacks. There's so much innovation, so much products. And as a consumer, I actually want to try different things. So I'm very open to innovation. I'm open to looking at new things. You have other categories where the consumer is just kind of nothing ever changes.

9:51Michael Keplinger:And a really good example I have that is like think of salt. It's so boring, right? It's just salt. And then some really smart marketer found this place in the Himalayas that happened to have a lot of iron content in the ground. It's just rusty salt. And so I have this great product. You know I'm talking about the Himalayan peach salt. And but if they just put it in the same container, you'd have a really hard time getting the consumer to kind of change their automatic buying behavior. And so the great thing is that it's pink and they put it in a clear case and you're just like there's cognitive disconnect.

10:22Michael Keplinger:Your brain's like, I don't get it. This is salt. Salt is white. This is pink. I must look closer. And so that is those are the kind of things like to be aware of of what's different in the category. And a lot of that comes to the norms and how repetitive we are in chopping and or if we're more open to trying new things. And all of that stuff, believe it or not, can have a pretty big impact on how you think about strategically, like the order of information. And like the eutheremic in not every category needs those really difficult jumps or leaps to connecting something. But it's still really related to the norms, like in a category.

10:56Michael Keplinger:Sometimes you just kind of need to keep the same, say, bottle or box shape or else it just doesn't really stand in or you have to kind of overcome that if that's part of it. And so trying to understand what are the category norms? What can I use as a shortcut just because people expect it? Sometimes we'll test that like some of these claims now gets back to like what belongs on front of pack messaging wise or visual. There's some things that are so expected in the category that if you actually don't say them, they just expect them to be true. And so if you know that, then that's actually a waste to talk about.

11:29Michael Keplinger:Like it's a waste to use valuable front of packages. What's the example of that? What's that? What would be an example of that that's kind of an expected thing in the category? Oh, I know you're going to put me on the spot here, right? Maybe you have a juice and like maybe there's something special about your apples, your apples. But if not, it's just like made with apples. Yeah. That's a bad example, but there are, I'm trying to think of an example of when we really tested this and we decided to pull that off of Frontipac. There was... Well, one thing that's kind of interesting as well as you're thinking about that, even with the T-squares, we normally, essentially a protein bar, but we didn't call it a protein bar.

12:08And we had it in the multi-serve pouch and consumers were not expecting to buy it in the multi-serve pouch. And so that really threw off their dissonance. And then we moved to an individual bar shape, but there are four squares inside. And I think when I'm going against it, people thought that it should be a solid bar. And then they thought the bar was broken because it moved, because there were four individual squares on a tray. And it really just like threw them off. Whereas if you are a protein bar, you don't need to say like one bar inside because people just assume that. But ours, we actually did have to say like four bite-sized squares.

12:42So like that those kinds of considerations were like, oh, otherwise people thought it would be broken.

12:47Michael Keplinger:Yeah. You know, and sometimes the expectations are so high that without saying them, you can even get a more positive reaction. Sometimes I think about like a brand is making a decision and they have a really, really high degree of, say, organic, of the quality of their thing. And it's like, what if we actually stopped paying this organic fee? Like we have margin compression in here and we just put the signals of the quality of that organic would have. And you start testing that and you actually ask questions like about what they believe is organic and what is not. And the perception that the product is organic is actually remains very, very high, even though they this particular brand decided to kind of stop spending that money on the organic certifications just because.

13:33Michael Keplinger:And a lot of it was to the sourcing because they were sourcing from out of the country to even higher degree standards than organic had. And it was really hard to get the organic certification at that growing facility in another country. And so we did a lot of work on testing those perceptions on that. And they were able to kind of they were able to maintain those. So a lot of it is the what it really comes down to in navigating these different decision points and what you put on pack. We all like to believe that consumers are going to read every word and rationally make choices. but I think the biggest takeaway is that consumers, especially in fast-moving consumer goods, because often we don't go to the store for one thing, we go for many things.

14:10Michael Keplinger:So shopping is a job and we're collecting a number of things. And even if you're not, you're limited in time. And so we actually make best choices. We don't make good enough choices is what I meant to say. And so to understand some of the drivers, like I need my product to have X, Y, and Z and it's like a checkbox as opposed to like, which one has the best of all three of these? And then so focusing more on what you really can differentiate on. Where are there degrees of separation that matter and your brand is aligned to that? And spend a disproportionate amount of messaging and visuals of really communicating that.

14:47You know, Mike, I share an example next. I have a bag of pistachios from this company, June, which I love. And they have three big pictures of pistachios. And you would like to hope that people would assume there are multiple pistachios in here and not just three. Right? So you can do things like highlight the sign, the shape, and the color, which is really important about them. But, you know, hopefully they don't have to say like, okay, there's actually, you know, two cups or a cup and a half. Three giant pistachios in this bag. Yeah, three giant pistachios in this bag. Let's talk a little bit about testing because I want to kind of understand what a testing roadmap might look like for an early stage brand who's just starting out so they can test out really and learn what matters to consumers.

15:25Michael Keplinger:Yeah. Yeah. So we so we have four main core tests that are presume one thing. They presume I actually know what my product is. Now, there is some space in there to that we work on positioning. And that's like, let's say you have a physical product, like what's inside the bag, the box, whatever isn't changing. But the way you talk about it and the way it's actually kind of thought about and framed into the consumer's world can be very different. And so I think that that part is it is it has some value if a brand's not really certain on that. There's a bunch of innovation work, too. I think that most startup brands are actually coming to market because they've they have a very strong idea or or feeling about the innovation.

16:07Michael Keplinger:Like they already have the innovation. And now that innovation work is like it's like the crafts and the big things where they're like, I have X dollars to spend this year. I need 10 ideas to find the best one. So anyways, can we kind of focus a bit more on like the startup and like how they really think about budgeting out some testing in the biggest bang for their buck? Yeah, let's do it. So I think a lot of it is like I think of it like a trade. If you can do it all, that's great because the testing is really iterative. And our baseline tests like so I just spent a bunch of time talking about how well do I understand how the consumer thinks about this?

16:40Michael Keplinger:Are there a couple little like shortcuts I can learn to use to communicate my value proposition or bring that forward? Again, some brands may already feel that they have a strong opinion about that. So it's kind of a need based thing. And then that would lead into our next test. So like, OK, these are the things that are most important. And the way we look at it, too, is not only that, but consumers are telling us they can discern a degree of differentiation among brands. And then as the brand owner, I'm like, okay, this is great because these two align really well with how my brand, what my product does, what my brand stands for.

17:13Michael Keplinger:So I'm going to focus on those. And then we would move into pack words. Like how do I get the biggest bang for the buck on a really limited real estate? So what are the words I can bring forward that are most resonant with that? You'll hear a lot. You can find a lot about claims testing. But what we do that's a little bit more than that is we bring it together and we prioritize things. And so it helps to kind of really hone in what I was talking about, the messaging hierarchy. How do you get the sequencing of messages right? And within there, too, we learn a little bit of like this is more see or say.

17:43Michael Keplinger:So that becomes a bit of an input to your creative team. So if you're designing like, hey, I need this to really be expressed through visuals or combination with these kind of words that we brought forward. So there's a lot of value, and I would call all of that strategy. A lot of it leads into you got brand strategy. It leads into creative strategy, which can go along with getting it right. My partner, Christy, does a lot of the strategy. So she'll spend a lot of time on matching that with like a feel, a vibe, a tone, like kind of personality that comes forward more in the creative process. But the biggest bang for your buck is really a third test that we do that diagnostic in nature.

18:20Michael Keplinger:So you come up with your concepts like we typically will do six. I'm like, hey, I got this great. I got these pistachios. and they're so special. I want a giant picture. We've got one concept's got a giant picture of three of them on the front, right? And then the other one is maybe something else. And so you have all these things. You're like, I have no idea, you know, which of these is really going to resonate. And especially if you're a new brand. So we look at things and we diagnose it. So we'll take a target audience and they randomly see one and do a deep dive in there. Is this really distinctive and memorable?

18:48Michael Keplinger:So that it kind of gets stand out on the shelf and becomes salient and memorable. And then if my core driver there is crunchiness, I'm just making this up for the pistachio. It's like the crunchiest pistachio in the world. And so we kind of measure like how crunchy compared to other pistachios do you feel that this is? And so we hit all those drivers. And then we usually end. It's kind of like our anchor, a competitor, a lead competitor, usually know who you're trying to most compete against. And you put them head to head and like you saw these both in the store, which would you most likely purchase?

19:20Michael Keplinger:and then that's kind of like, okay, this is the performance and then this explains the performance. Like these drivers are weak. But we also look for visual aspects because you might be performing, oh, it looks super crunchy, but consumers tell us that it looks really too busy or it's cluttered design and that's fixable. So all these turn into action. And that's one of the most valuable pieces of, because it's really not done today to actually essentially go rebrief. Because what happens today, the brand owner is like, oh, I really like concept A, but can you change the color to this? Or, oh, I like what you did over here.

19:54Michael Keplinger:What if you put that over there and it turns into a bit of a Frankenstein design? Yeah. You know, Michael, I'm curious to you, have you done any sales-based testing with packaging? And I'm just thinking of like, essentially maybe selling on your website, showing two different packages and see which one has a higher conversion rate. And then maybe either shipping to or putting a little note and saying like, hey, the actual packaging might change for what you saw online or something like that to see like how people actually buy. I mean, I think we all know that there's no better true data than like the sales data, right?

20:25Michael Keplinger:Voting with your wallet. But if you had six concepts, that's pretty hard to do. It might be confusing for the brand. It works really well with ad, right? You can do A-B testing with ads because it's easy to make a whole bunch of digital ads and swap them out. But a physical product is a lot harder. Now, if you sell on with high volume, maybe direct to consumer and you have that ability, I think there's probably nothing more beneficial than that. But you're kind of going into another thing where to execute that, it's really hard to do in a retail setting. And a retail setting is where your packaging is doing all of the work, but you really have nothing else.

21:01Michael Keplinger:Not many consumers are showing up with a whole bunch of like like the old days, like I saw this ad on TV. I'm going to go find that product. It just doesn't happen anymore. But the point I was getting is whether you're shopping direct on a brand's website or on Amazon or anywhere, you have more than the packaging to choose from. You've got bullet points. You've got more images and things like this. So it does dilute that. But I would say there's nothing better than the real data. So our testing tends to mimic that for that reason. The last test we do is really a purchase intent test where we put price on there.